The Essential Business Framework

Plans, proposals, and brainstorms are all about planning and implementing a change. Whether it is changing the way you do business, changing how customers see your products or changing the world, all of these documents can be communicated with a single framework. The simple framework I use is called SOTSAM which is a mnemonic for:

Situational Analysis – why is change necessary?Objectives – what needs to be changed and to what extent?Target Audience – who must be involved in the change?Strategies – how is the change going to achieve your objectives?Action Plan – what are the exact steps required to make the change?Monitoring – how are you going to monitor the change and measure its success?

This framework is the essence of productive planning, purposeful meetings and faster project implementation. You will see it in many forms but this is one of the simplest.